State provides access to insurers’ rate-hike proposals

Insurance companies’ requests for rate increases are on the state Department of Financial Services’ website, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today. This is the first time those documents are available to the public. Previously, they were kept confidential.

Benjamin Lawsky, superintendent of financial services, required that all requests be made available to the public. Insurers strongly opposed doing this at first, but they dropped their objections. United Healthcare was the first to do that.

The state’s prior-approval law, adopted in 2010, requires that insurance companies seek approval from the state to increase their rates for individuals, small groups and some large groups. For the 15 years prior to 2010, insurers set their own rates. The Department of Financial Services announced last week that the average increase for policies that begin on or after Jan. 1, 2012 is 8.2 percent, compared to the average of 12.7 percent hikes insurers requested. Consumers will save more than $400 million in 2012, according to the state.

“Rising health insurance costs hit everyone, and especially those who can least afford them,” Cuomo said in a statement. “This is a great day for transparency and the public’s right to know how their health insurance premiums are set.”

Lawsky said in a statement that disclosure of the requests and competition should help control increases in health-care premiums.

The rate applications contain information such as a summary of how much insurers have spent on medical claims in the past two years, the amount of administrative expenses and profits, a list of all benefit changes, the policies and geographic regions and the number of people affected by increases, and a memorandum of actuarial assumptions.

Certain details of contracts between an insurer and hospitals or other health-care providers will be considered for exclusion from public disclosure to prevent other providers from using the information to demand higher payments.